If fun is not enough motivation to play a game, then you shouldn't play it.

"End game" starts at level 1. The number next to your character doesn't mean anything. If you don't have any motivation to get to 80, then don't - it doesn't matter. You don't actually have to get to 80 to enjoy the game.

Howdy Borzo, your post cought my eye. Just wanted to point out that I do play for fun. That is honestly the only reason I play video games. I am not 'confused', but you are absolutely correct to say that I am 'conflicted'. I am conflicted because I have been looking forward to this game for so long but cannot see the point of getting to max level as ANet have yet to release anything that will involve max level organization.

Now, that is the point that I have created the thread for in the first place... But you and Lothaeryn posted something that made me think a bit. You said "End game starts at level 1". I have heard this before, both on forumns and from the mouths of the creators of the game themselves. What on earth does it mean though? Can someone please explain to me what this could entail? Beacuse of all the posts so far (which I appreciate everyone chiming in for this conversation), this "End game at level 1" has me the most intrigued...

Now Lothaeryn, first off thanks for your post, but could you be a little more specific? Or, not really specific, but go into further detail to express your post for me? I understand/know that they have exploration modes for thier dungeons with multiple outcomes. I just can't fathom any of them involving any majoy strategies that big-name raids would/can.

Now, that is the point that I have created the thread for in the first place... But you and Lothaeryn posted something that made me think a bit. You said "End game starts at level 1". I have heard this before, both on forumns and from the mouths of the creators of the game themselves. What on earth does it mean though? Can someone please explain to me what this could entail? Beacuse of all the posts so far (which I appreciate everyone chiming in for this conversation), this "End game at level 1" has me the most intrigued...

The game has scaling. You statistically get more powerful but the challenge is relative to areas you adventure in. So if you are level 80 and jump to a L10, L20 or L3 DE, you are scaled down appropriately to the area. Likewise, you can take on tougher challenges earlier without the artifice of say that mob being L20s above you and thus one-shotting you regardless of how skilled you are.

In GW2, you're ability to play well, not necessarily be geared well, matters.

in a way, DEs become different should the game start "dying" like some ppl say wow is. i feel that server population will affect how often a particular "stage" of DE will be experienced.

if the server population is normal, then the chance for players to experience say, "centaurs have took over the village" DE will be the norm.
if the server population is high, then the chance for players to experience "centaur attacking the village" DE will be the norm. due to the number of players, most likely players would often have stopped the centaurs from taking over the village and prevented the DE from progressing.
if the server population becomes low, then the chance for players to experience "centaurs have started to attack multiple villages" DE will be the norm. there is not enough players to intervene in all of the DEs and most likely some DEs will advance to a late stage of the cycle.
if the server population becomes very low and ppl complain the game is "dying", then this is the stage where i think DEs will start to be most interesting. without sufficient and frequent player intervention to the DEs, the DEs will have high chance to progress to extremely high stages. maybe a stage where "centaurs have controlled an entire zone and are beginning to siege a major city".

being in low pop servers or having the game lose popularity may not be such a bad thing after all with DEs.

I can't say that I kno everything about the exploration modes, but Anet will add thbree different versions of exploration to their 5 man dungeons, each on that takes a different path through the dungeon than was taken in story mode.

Each of these modes have differet target goals to achieve, and will hae different dynamic encounters that randomly will pop up during the run, these DE's are not static and wil always ,change every time you enter the dungeon.

However, there will be different boses through each exploration zone, and these are tailored for organized teamplay, they are esentially raid bosses, since the nature of the game does not allow for thbe traditional role of tanking andhealing. So everyone needs to be on their game to use their abilities wisely and coordnate a strateg of synchornizing their abilities to defeat the boss.

This may not be 100% accurate, but its what I got the gist of from videos and threads I have seen, anyon else whbo knows better feel free to comment and add your input

Damn you WoW! The amount of MMORPG players compared to how many there were 10-12 years ago is just crazy, it's a good thing and a bad thing. The only thing the majority of people know for end game now is raids raids raids.

If GW2 can successfully pull people out of towns and into exploring the world for the majority of the time, then you won't need raids. Your gear stats might not be so important, but there will still be things to work towards.

I think people just picture WoW, and it makes them think of all the people afk in Org/Stormwind, and then they see GW2 doesn't have raids, so they're just like wtf is there to do then?

At first when I heard about these Elite Events I was all for them. They just sounded awesome. They have a story that goes along with them and they actually happen in the world around you. You don't just get to hear about them, you actually get to be APART of them! Of all the things in this game, I had originally thought that, yes, this would be "my thing". But the more I think about them, the more I start to sencond guess myself.

Sure, the events scale up with the number of people involved, but what else? If you haven't yet played Rift let me try to explain to you what I'm getting at. In Rift, the amount of people involved in the End-Game Rifts directly increased the difficulty of the encounter. The difficulty only increased though with the amount of health the mobs had, along with the how hard they hit and could take a hit. Nothing else though. There was no if 25 people showed up then the boss adds another move to his rotation for people to learn and avoid. It was stagnant, devoid of any involvement of feeling that you were actually taking part in an epic battle other than the fact that you had a hundred people with you.

If anyone can tell me that with amount of people involved in the Epic-Events the harder that fights get (other than increased health/damage/defence) than yes, I would have to completely agree with Grugmuc and say that this is what I will be looking for in the game the most.

EVERY MMO out there has End-Game concepts with small/medium sized groups that revolve around the same style of strategy. That is where I have fun. I love tactics/strategy/orginization. I love having to group up with a decent sized group and take out the big-baddie. But where is that in this game? Will it have it or am I over my head and should I start thinking about picking up another game?

You know what's probably the most exciting experience you can have in a Wow 5 man? The tank dying and you still managing to kill the boss. You have to think on your feet, think about what everyone else is doing at all times and then when you think you have it all figured out everything can change in an instant. That's what GW2 5 mans are like thanks to the lack of dps/heal/tank trinity. That may sound like it lacks strategy, but it's quite the opposite. When you reach a boss you'll have to actually talk to your party and decide how you're going to handle it. Which is a hell of lot more involved then learning a fight by watching a tankspot video.

If so, why cant they have raiding for the people who enjoy it. seems like they are only giving me options that they want me to play.

You shoul try not to get stuck on one post in the future, I explained it a bit more later on but the reason why raiding wasn't added was because people afe too used to that style o gameplay at end game. They expect it. And becaue they expect it they will ignore almost everything else in the game b ecause they know tha is where the good ewards come from.

They don't wat to add raiding because they wat people to actually look at their surroundings and see what other avenues of progression is there. If they added raiding, they felt it would be just as good as saying "ignore everything else in the game, raiding is this way".

The only thing i am worried about is stuff being to easy, when i am doing stuff with my guild. Or on the opposite side, making events so hard that a group of strangers cant down anything.
I wana have the option of very very hard content, and easy stuff that people can grasp so I dont get frustrated when i am in a pug of sorts.

If anyone can tell me that with amount of people involved in the Epic-Events the harder that fights get (other than increased health/damage/defence) than yes, I would have to completely agree with Grugmuc and say that this is what I will be looking for in the game the most.

Bosses do gain more abilities when group size increases. Although it obviously depends on the boss, an example is the Broodmother mini boss that gains a knockdown tailwhip once you get around (for memory) 6 people attacking.

If so, why cant they have raiding for the people who enjoy it. seems like they are only giving me options that they want me to play.

"We aren't quite at a point where we can talk about specifics, but one thing I can say is that we want our various end games to be accessible to the average player. That means that we won't have massive multi-party raids that disallow smaller guilds and groups from taking part. We want our game to be as accessible as possible to the largest group of players possible. "

They don't wat to add raiding because they wat people to actually look at their surroundings and see what other avenues of progression is there. If they added raiding, they felt it would be just as good as saying "ignore everything else in the game, raiding is this way".

You could make the argument for anything. (If they added pvp, felt it would be just as good as saying "ignore everything else in the game, pvp is the way" And clearly thats not the way it is. Playing wow, rift, aion My guild did world pvp, bg's, world bosses, raids, everything. Just saying, raiding appeals to so many people, it would be a shame to not put that aspect in the game for people who want to raid on their downtime.

Also, as the devs always say, in GW2 endgame begins at level 1. In traditional MMOs you grind XX levels, then when you reach the level cap, the game completely changes and you do the important stuff. In GW2, you do the "important stuff" from the beginning. To use an unbiased analogy, it's like starting with desert without having to eat the plate of broccoli first.

You know what's probably the most exciting experience you can have in a Wow 5 man? The tank dying and you still managing to kill the boss. You have to think on your feet, think about what everyone else is doing at all times and then when you think you have it all figured out everything can change in an instant. That's what GW2 5 mans are like thanks to the lack of dps/heal/tank trinity. That may sound like it lacks strategy, but it's quite the opposite. When you reach a boss you'll have to actually talk to your party and decide how you're going to handle it. Which is a hell of lot more involved then learning a fight by watching a tankspot video.

As for large scale dynamic events, that's more of a wait and see.

I completely agree with you here. You are right on the spot when you say that the best moments in WoW/Raiding are when something wrong happens and you are without your healer or tank for the rest of the fight but are still able to bring down the boss. You are also right in saying that that is honestly when the most strategy comes into playbeacuse everyone has to be on top of thier game. That is also the biggest reason I got interested in this game in the first place. The fact that there are no healers or tanks. Everyone has to be on thier best, every time.

I honestly am starting to see clearer now with all of these posts and it is making me even more excited to play the game, but I still have one more lingering doubt... My first MMO with Tibia, I went from that straight to EQ/EQ2, then to WoW. I have played FFXI, Rift, Aion and a whole hell of a lot of other MMOs. Now, all of these game were ground breaking in thier own rights. Every single one of them added something new to the MMO genre. But they all had one thing in common. They all had an End-Game boss.

Now that I have re-read all the posts above me I think that this is what my major concern was about. How will we deal with the "Big Boss"? I know that there won't be raiding, I am ok with that now I guess. But if they have us defeat the 'Final' boss of the game/expansions in an event than I am afraid that it will be so damn anticlimatic; the same if they just add them into a dungeon as there won't be that epic feel of a decent sized group to take him/her down with.

i think players that are trying to view and play gw2 from a wow standpoint may be confused and disappointed that gw2 is not a "better wow" but a "different mmo".
the goals and methods of gameplay are drastically different. the issue of "but i run on an endgame raid hamster wheel!" can be answered with "u should play wow or swtor then".

You could make the argument for anything. (If they added pvp, felt it would be just as good as saying "ignore everything else in the game, pvp is the way" And clearly thats not the way it is. Playing wow, rift, aion My guild did world pvp, bg's, world bosses, raids, everything. Just saying, raiding appeals to so many people, it would be a shame to not put that aspect in the game for people who want to raid on their downtime.

I think foreverlad's quote answered it best, seeing as its from the developers mouth.

And I would have to agree, while I do like the concept of raiding it does create a gated feeing of gameplay. And people feel left out when they can't participate in something. And they feel it necessary to join a group of people they genrally may not get along with.

I cannot tell you how many times I guild hoppd in WoW, simply because I never found my nich group to hang out with. Everyones goals seemed to differ, so I never could hold down a mutual relationship with my guildmates. And in general i probably would never have even bothered to talk to them if it wasn't for the fact that I needed them to raid and as a result, get the gear I wanted.

It just causes an absurd amount of tension when there is no ned for there to be, I think that's why they didn't want raiding.

Yes I have grammar mistakes, that is becausei am texting this post on a phone at 1 AM, so I will take my leave, ty.

How will we deal with the "Big Boss"? I know that there won't be raiding, I am ok with that now I guess. But if they have us defeat the 'Final' boss of the game/expansions in an event than I am afraid that it will be so damn anticlimatic; the same if they just add them into a dungeon as there won't be that epic feel of a decent sized group to take him/her down with.

Eric: The only Elder Dragon (of the 6) that players encounter in Guild Wars 2 is Zhaitan, and he is fought as part of a dungeon. So it’s safe to say that at least for the initial release of the game, you’ll only see Elder Dragons in instances.

I do suspect they will have all of the elder dragon encounters in personal story based dungeons so they can properly use them as a story telling device. Open dynamic events tend to be more for their underlings ie the Shatterer and Tequatl the sunless.

You know what's probably the most exciting experience you can have in a Wow 5 man? The tank dying and you still managing to kill the boss. You have to think on your feet, think about what everyone else is doing at all times and then when you think you have it all figured out everything can change in an instant. That's what GW2 5 mans are like thanks to the lack of dps/heal/tank trinity. That may sound like it lacks strategy, but it's quite the opposite. When you reach a boss you'll have to actually talk to your party and decide how you're going to handle it. Which is a hell of lot more involved then learning a fight by watching a tankspot video.

As for large scale dynamic events, that's more of a wait and see.

No dout that the dungeons in GW2 will be more fun, just for the fact that everyone will have to play the role of a tank/dps/healer/support. And in turn the dongeons should be more challenging.(which is good)
I know i am comparing to wow in this sentence but. Remember in wow where you tried to pug a heroic and people just sucked so much that you couldnt down the first boss, how should we expect those people to be on a GW2 dungeon?
I believe the skill cap might be higher in dungeons because you wont be spamming 1-3 button.
That really goes for any event in GW2

i think players that are trying to view and play gw2 from a wow standpoint may be confused and disappointed that gw2 is not a "better wow" but a "different mmo".
the goals and methods of gameplay are drastically different. the issue of "but i run on an endgame raid hamster wheel!" can be answered with "u should play wow or swtor then".

Do not take this is me being rude, try to take it as one gamer to another gamer giving friendly advice. Don't be a jack-ass.

No one in this entire thread (especially myself) have stated that want that raiding "hamster wheel". To be frank, that is the reason why we (those of use who do enjoy raiding) are looking forward to this game in the first place. None of us that enjoy raiding want to have to deal with the damn loot-grind. Those of us waiting for this game have had enough of it. We just like RAIDING though. We all like getting with a group of people and forming a plan and then seeing if it works. We like taking what people are good at and involving them into our strategies. The thing is, those of us who enjoy raiding are afraid that this will not be possible in this game.

We are not afraid really of "raids" being instanced with only a certain amount of people involved (think 15-25 peeps), we are worried that the major events around the world will just be a Dodge and Spank; something that every John/Jane Doe can just run up to and take down without some sort of strategy or organization.